Drinking and Disasters
by barefoot11
Summary: When Gilbert opens his eyes, he realizes what a terrible mistake he'd made: leaving his friends alone with Matthew. But it was only a mistake, wasn't it? Just an accident? He hadn't meant for things to... Human names used, Prussia/Canada if you squint.


What was with all of the snow on the ground? It tickled his bare feet, twisting their naturally pale color to something redder. Soon enough, Matthew thought, they would turn blue from the contact. But when had the snow suddenly appeared? It wasn't as if two feet of it could just materialize…. And then again, why was he even focusing on the snow?

Before him, miles and miles of barren land stretched. At times, it created mountains that touched the sky, and sometimes it dipped down into sharp trenches and slow valleys. The wind whipped and slashed anything it touched. There was no sun to stare down at him – there wasn't a moon, either; only clouds that were painted gray in the darkness. How Matthew was capable of seeing, and making out shapes, was beyond him. How had he gotten there? What had happened previously?

His mind was as blurry as the snow made the landscape. Without a smile on his lips, he knew that something was very wrong with the scene. His heart was racing, which was another clue, but he couldn't think of any reason for his discomfort, or for his surreal fear. Alone, he wasn't able to beseech anyone for answers.

Where was everyone?

…Who was _everyone_?

How did he get there?

…Where was _there_?

Who was… he?

Suddenly, everything relented, and turned black. But he hadn't lost consciousness – it was if some sadistic puppet master had thrown him into a case, then locked it tight. Matthew could move, he could struggle and moan, but nothing helped ease him. He screamed the first thing that came to mind, "Help me! Gilbert!"

Wait.

Why did he need help?

What was going on?

How was Gilbert?

Was he in trouble?

…Who was Gilbert, again?

Nothing was recognizable in his mind. Frantically, with a rising sense of panic, Matthew's hands fumbled forward. He tried grabbing onto anything that could even possibly assist him. He found flurries of snowflakes that bit his skin. Oh, so he was probably still in the same place, he figured, but he just couldn't see.

Was that better or worse than the world turning black?

Matthew dared a step forward, hoping that if he could walk, he could escape the dark, and find the light again. He could find everyone, find _Gilbert_. Gilbert… it was a reoccurring thought in his mind, but such a foreign statement. He couldn't bring himself to focus on the subject at all, since it hurt his head, and his heart. "Ow, ow, ow." Then, he lost his footing, after about three steps.

The icy cold ground was his welcoming, and he collapsed into the snow. Useless, his hands fell about his head. Matthew's tangled locks of hair nearly dissolved into the snow, as he began sinking. His eyes closed – at least, he thought he closed his eyes – and he let a more cool feeling overtake him. Peaceful and silent, at last, everything turned dark. This time, it was unconsciousness, but not without a fleeting thought.

_How am I going to explain all… this? To… him?_

* * *

Frantic. Searching. Screaming. Clawing. Frozen rain, at that moment, was his worst enemy, as he plowed through feet of it. He couldn't see past it, either, and he hated the feeling of blindness. Darn it, he thought, that isn't helping. But what else could he do? He didn't have a megaphone to make his voice louder and hope for a response; he didn't have any vehicles to help himself go faster or more fruitfully. He had nothing but his croaking voice, his numb body and his crying spirit. But as he told himself, that was awesome enough. Gilbert had everything he really needed – he'd pull through, he was sure of it.

Optimism and awesomeness would help him, he knew.

Not the lingering feeling of failure. Or of helplessness, and not of loss.

No, that didn't help at all.

Fighting against the urge to whimper, he pressed his lips tightly against one another. He tried keeping his forearms sealed in front of his eyes so the snow wouldn't irritate them as easily, but after a good half hour of trudging like that, his arms began to tire and sore. He tossed them down to his sides.

Gilbert heard something, that at first, he characterized as a taunting jib from his mind or a tease from the wind. But when it repeated itself, hauntingly, over and over, he realized that the horrific moan and subconscious screaming might not just be fiction. He shouted, in a fury, "Matthew, hang on, kid!"

* * *

Stammers were the first thing he heard. Shaking, muttering, cursing stammers from the front entrance way. And then he heard the door being slammed closed from behind someone. Ludwig's guilt erupted into a sort of meek hope, and he pried himself away from the kitchen bar, along with other members of the party. Footsteps echoed like music – some from upstairs, some from the garage, and a few from the living room. They were like a flock of geese, curious to see how it had all played out and all of them with stammering heartbeats – some more hurried than others.

Ludwig, with his large form, pushed past the five or six other people to reach the visitor, and the sight weren't pleasant.

Gilbert's chest was heaving and his breaths came in labored movements. The hood from his heavy black jacket was resting on his back, carrying piles of snow within it. His gray hair carried on an even lighter tone with the white precipitation that littered it. With the roaring flush of his cheeks, the flaring emotion in his eyes became more tangible. He glared at everything that dared move toward him, but it softened a bit when Ludwig came forward to lift the weight from his arms.

"Don't you dare hurt him," Gilbert warned, in a growl. Irreplaceable protective instincts were kicking in, along with a sense of betrayal and vengeance.

Ludwig cautiously nodded, and moved past the group. He placed the hopefully sleeping blonde onto the couch. He did so very carefully, but despite it, the moment the limp body hit the cushions, showers of snow fell from every corner of his body unto the ground.

Matthew still remained soaked to the bone, and involuntarily shivering, even as a blanket was draped across his form.

"Ve, Ludwig," Feliciano began, tears hidden in the corners of his eyes. "He's not... is he?" So many different adjectives or nouns could be placed between those fragments of words, but Ludwig knew enough of the Italian's personality to supply it himself.

With a heavy and weary sigh, he responded, "No, he's not. Don't worry." In an attempted to soothe the other, when Ludwig stood, he patted Feliciano's head, forcing a smile upon his lips to reassure a positive outcome.

Feliciano smiled gratefully at the contact. "Okay, I'll go make some pasta for when he wakes up then, ve~!" Cheerfully, he skipped away, and left a clearly tense atmosphere behind him.

Without the always-happy entity of Feliciano, the rest of the group was somber and utterly hopeless. Alfred had rushed to kneel beside his brother, and was nervously moving a cool piece of hair from the other's closed eyes. When it moved back to its regular place – as if frozen there – he would quickly flick it away again. And so the cycle began all so that Alfred wouldn't lose his temper and lash out at the others in the room.

Antonio held his head in his hands, and sat in the far corner of the room, restlessly rubbing his fingers against his scalp. His pleading eyes sought Francis'.

Francis wasn't looking at him – he wouldn't look at him. In a statue-like pose, he kept one hand covering his mouth and his opposite arm clutched around his midsection. He stood, frozen, in the corner farthest away from Antonio, and from the rest of the group. Blue eyes scanned the area, gauging reactions and judging how long some of them had to live, since revenge was best served cold and ruthless.

Keeping on the expression of the deeply concerned parental figure that he was, Arthur was frowning. He stood to the side of Alfred, making sure that there weren't any tears shed at the moment. He had half the mind to scream at the ones responsible for this mess, but he knew he had to keep a calm head, so that it just might play out peacefully.

Later, he would dub that the calm before the storm.

After removing his multiple coats and shaking the snow from his clothing, Gilbert ran into the room, nearly slipping on the trail of water. His shoes were long gone, left lonely at the front door, and his feet created wet and sloppy _smack_ing noises against the wooden flooring. As if he was a noble, everyone moved away automatically, fearing him. Gilbert ran straight up to Francis, his anger building. His frame shook, and his fingers twitched in the anticipation of bloodshed. "This is your entire fucking fault, you damn bastard!" He reached out for the other's neck, but someone had his arms before he could.

Holding his brother away from Francis, but far enough away from himself so he couldn't be strangled, Ludwig glared. "East, this is no time for accusations. We have to make sure that…" Despite how much the name had been said over the past few hours, it still wasn't fresh in his mind. "…Matthew is okay. Afterward, we can begin planning out what actions are going to be taken." His authority seeped through his tired voice, demanding all to pay attention: pay respect.

Francis nearly crumbled against the heat of the glare he received from Gilbert. When the guilt settled over his shoulders once more, he finally looked toward Antonio, only to find that the Spaniard's eyes were skillfully – and sorrowfully – avoiding his.

_So that's how he's going to play…_

* * *

The small and round kitchen table didn't stand up to the magnificence of their normal meeting's conference table, but it would have to make due. They all avoided one another's gazes. Five of them sat around it, one of them stood before them all, while one was scurrying around handing out generous bowls of pasta. One last person was still cold on the couch, the light from a dirty window scattering translucent rainbows against his head.

The silence was a sharp as the wind outside, but finally, Ludwig brought himself to say, "Now, I wasn't there when this began. Someone please explain." Simple, and to the point, he thought, reflecting upon how his voice conveyed no emotion whatsoever.

Gilbert exploded, "They put Mattie outside, thinking it would be damn funny to watch him walk around without his specs." His accusatory finger pointed out Francis and Antonio, who sat next to one another at the very edge of the table.

"…Drunk," Francis defended. "We were all drunk – even _Mathieu_ was." Raising numb eyes from the table, he explored red ones. "You were there too, Gilbert, just as drunk as the rest of us. You could have done something. Don't play hero."

Despite himself and his own personal fury, Alfred misplaced his words, "'Cause that's my job…" He was rewarded with a sharp slap to the shoulder, courtesy of Arthur, who was sitting to his right. He didn't respond, only sunk lower into his seat. Depression was heavy.

Taking a moment to think of his defense, Gilbert narrowed his eyes in distaste. "I wasn't the one who bet him twenty bucks that he couldn't do it!"

Antonio moaned. "_Dios mio_," he wailed, "I'm sorry!" He ran his fingers through his dark hair again, trying to calm his own crashing guilt. "I-I didn't think he would take it seriously, he's normally so shy!"

One thing seemed to be on Francis' mind. "He was drunk, too, remember, _mon ami_. _Mathieu_ is a crazy drunk…"

"Who woulda thought?" Alfred mused.

Arthur reprimanded, "It's your fault for bringing the alcohol, Francis." He had barely resisted the urge to drink away his tension earlier. Unfortunately, the Bad Friends Trio hadn't been so lucky, and had lured Matthew into their drinking games as well. His Canadian friend had never handled his alcohol well…

Francis bristled. "I never meant for –"

"What else is alcohol for?!" Arthur yelled with his voice raising. "It does nothing but get people bloody drunk! And then they end up hurt."

Gilbert's body was shaking – it was the aftereffect of such worry, fear and cold. He didn't quite understand why it had been so easy for him to emotional. Oh, well, yeah, he was probably still a bit tipsy. And then when he started yelling, there was a shattering of glass just beside them.

"Feli!" Ludwig shouted, moving quickly to the Italian's side. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Broken pieces of a plate were dancing around Feliciano's feet. He was whimpering, and tears openly flowed down his face. "V-Ve, I'm okay, Ludwig. All the shouting scared me!" He bent down to pick everything up, but he was stopped.

Ludwig reassured, "No, I'll do that. You can go out and watch…" _Again._ "…Matthew, in case he wakes up. That would be helpful." Honestly, he just didn't want the shaken man handling sharp pieces of glass.

Feliciano nodded, and instantly followed orders. He moved out into the living room, pulling one of the single chairs closer to the couch, and sat. He tilted his head a bit. It was amazing how he hadn't woken up after all of the screaming… He probably would have wakened up from one of his _siestas_ if there was that much noise! He admired Matthew's form, looking at a person he'd really never looked at before…

After Ludwig had finished in the kitchen, he quickly ran back to the table. Luckily, no one was dead, bleeding, or crying. Though, he still took on a voice that sounded as if they had all been misbehaving. "We shouldn't be blaming anyone, that doesn't help! We're just lucky that East managed to find him. He had already been out there for at least an hour before we had realized he was missing. He could have been dead by then!" He faintly noticed how Gilbert cringed at the mention. "We're just going to have to wait until he wakes up, and we can all give our apologies."

* * *

"Ve! You have such pretty eyes!" Feliciano leaned forward, looking closer at the sleepy-head's face. "They're a pretty purple color! I like the color purple; I used to paint with it all the time."

Cued by Feliciano's incessant chattering, Ludwig looked up from his spot of reading at the table. "Feli!" He shouted. "Is he awake?" He wouldn't put it past the younger performing soliloquy out of boredom.

"Yes, he is! You should see his eyes, Ludwig – they're purple!"

Though he could care less about the eyes of the fellow, Ludwig ran into the living room. He saw how confused Matthew was, and how his eyes were clouded with sleep. He didn't seem to be in pain, which was a good thing. "Are you alright?" He kept his voice low – he had sent everyone else into their rooms earlier, and didn't want to alert them to the change quite yet. He didn't want to have to face chaos, and the young man probably wasn't in the mood, either.

"I-I-I don't know," Matthew said after a long moment. Everything was a fog before his eyes.

Where was he?

Why was that voice so familiar?

Why were the shapes so familiar?

Matthew groaned, feeling the dull ache of his head, and the weariness of his limbs. He had nothing to tell him what had happened. He could ask all of the questions vibrating in his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to. His tongue felt heavy.

Ludwig sighed, feeling his guilt again. He should have stopped them from drinking, but he had been too occupied with setting up the plans for the evening. But the plans ended up as good as the pieces of glass in the garbage can. It had all fallen apart before him…

Ludwig remembered how he had heard laughter from the lower levels of the house as he had been in his room, and thinking that everyone was getting along. He didn't expected that the other responsible adult – Arthur – would be too busy making tea to watch the others, or that Alfred had a movie marathon to catch, leaving the trio alone with Matthew. He regretted it heavily. Gilbert had fallen into an alcohol-induced slumber before Antonio and Francis had even hatched their plan. And after Matthew was out in the snow, blind, the two of them had easily forgotten the younger's presence, and crawled out to bother Arthur.

Only when Gilbert had waken up had the disappearance been reported, since for some reason, he never forgot about Matthew.

"Is anything broken?" Ludwig questioned next. They hadn't exactly examined the other when they brought him in, too caught up on accusations and fury.

Matthew moved a bit, and shook his head in the negative. "No… I think I just hit my head. It kind of… hurts."

Ludwig could have taken the safe road and deemed it a premature hangover, but he didn't know if Matthew had fallen, and maybe cracked his head. "Should I get you an ice pack, or something?"

He recoiled at the idea. "N-No, please, I'm alright." As his vision and head cleared a bit, he managed to remember that this was Ludwig he was talking to, and the one bouncing by his side was Feliciano. "…Thank you, though." He wanted answers, and a reason for why he felt why he did. "What happened?"

Reluctant to say, Ludwig looked away. "W-Well, you see –" Would Matthew think him guilty, too? He wasn't able to find out, for a loud voice split the air.

"Mattie's awake?" Gilbert ran down the stairs, after seeing his brother talking to the couch. He stopped when he stood beside his brother, and looked down with slight sympathy, and maybe a bit concern. "You 'kay, kid?"

Not giving Matthew a chance to answer, Ludwig interrupted, "He's fine, and he just wants to know what happened." As he had already heard the story, he put a hand on Feliciano's shoulder. "There's a lot of extra pasta left…" He didn't have to finish the sentence, since his hand was grabbed and the Italian led him happily from the room.

Gilbert growled. "That's a dirty trick, West!" He called after them. He avoided the pure purple gaze that was looking so pleadingly up at him.

It hadn't taken long for Matthew to remember Gilbert's voice, since it was stitched into his memory. "G-Gil," he requested, feeling his frantic emotions from hours before creep up upon him. "What did I do?"

Shocked that Matthew's first thought was that he had done something wrong, Gilbert turned wide eyes on him. "Nothing, birdie," he said, slowly, and with a sigh at the end. "…Everything's my fault. I'm…" He tried his best to recall how exactly the statement was supposed to be phrased, since he didn't use it often. "I'm… sorry, I think. Yeah, yeah I am sorry."

Matthew requested, while rubbing his eyes against tears, "What happened?" He had figured everything to be a dream… the snow had been so white, so angelic… the wind had felt so fake. He couldn't believe that it was slowly coming to him that all of it had actually happened: those hours stuck in a snow storm, alone.

Where had Gilbert been during that?

Why did he say it was his fault?

Had he done it on purpose?

Gilbert confirmed, "…You, Antonio and Francis were drunk, and I had fallen asleep. I guess that gave them the opportunity to jeopardize your life…" He didn't go into specifics, since he knew Matthew would slowly remember it all anyway. "But that doesn't matter. It's just… awesome that you're okay." He didn't like the fact that everyone had forgotten him beforehand, but he couldn't win everything.

A meek smile split Matthew's lips, before his head started pounding again. "Were you the one that… are you the one that saved me?" It could have been Ludwig, or Alfred, but he would like to take a special pride if Gilbert had risked his own awesomeness to save the shy little him…

After a moment, he relented, "…Yeah, that was me. And you had me pretty worried, kid. Don't do it again."

"I'll… I'll try."

"Good. Now while you do that, I'm going to bash Francis' face in. Excuse me."

The stomping of stairs and the high-pitched shout Matthew heard minutes later made his smile widen, but his head hurt even more. Nonetheless, it lit his heart with a twinge of happiness.

* * *

**A/N**: _Dios mio__ – _Spanish for 'My God';_ Mon ami_ – French for 'My friend'.

Thanks to **BeautifulXinXBlood** for fixing the translation. :)

Fail ending is fail, and I didn't get in as much angst as I wanted to. –le sigh– But I managed to get in a few different dynamics to the story, yay~! I hope you enjoyed; I used a different style of writing.

Any questions? Ask. I have the feeling I left something out.

**R&R**~!


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